With the arrival of baby imminent I decided to have a go at making a ‘groaning cake’, a delicious spicy apple cake perfect for new mammas.  Check out the recipe here.

I came across this recipe a little while ago and couldn’t get it out my head, it’s just so cute and crafty!

I was a little unsure how the colour would turn out after the buttons were baked as the raw dough had quite a good pastel look – very vintage buttony – so these are maybe a little dark…  But anyway I found the recipe here if you want it ’shortbread buttons…’

Such a lovely and satisfying way to celebrate the solstices.  This is the second attempt at garlic growing for us, and this is by far more successful than the first.  I so recommend growing your own!

The photo above was taken in August and shows the first strong shoots pushing up through the mulch and good worm cast compost…  only four months later and we have these!

I found some lovely large organic garlic cloves at my local organics shop, much of which was already sprouting and was much better than the seed garlic I bought from the plant shop the previous year.  We used the same bed in the garden, and for the six months it was between crops we added several layers of compost as garlic apparently uses a lot of nitrogen.  After planting the cloves we covered the bed in a thick mulch of leaves.

It was really very easy to grow, we have a worm farm which provides a good liquid fertilizer, that I applied fairly regularly, we had plenty of rain and so I did not need to water very often until late November.  We also tended to avoid many other plants growing in the same bed as garlic is one of those plants that does not make a good companion, ours shared the bed with some self-seeding Kale and Calendulas and that was about it.

It took a morning to brush off the dried dirt and braid up, about 50 cloves, six of which stayed smallish cloves and a couple that were spiked by the fork, so plenty for us and some to share around.  It’s good to let it air dry, we kept it mostly shaded for a few days until it was ready for braiding.  The flavour seems to develop nicely as the cloves dry, but you can still cook with them fresh.

So it’s been years since I’ve made my own gnocchi, or simply ‘potato dumplings’ and I had forgotten how easy it is, and of course how yummy they are!

It’s a simple process, there are a few different variations out there, mine is basic, I boiled up five large potatoes, peeled and chopped, in salted water – don’t over cook them!  Drain them, I reserve the water for cooking the gnocchi, then press the potato through a sieve into a bowl or onto the bench, sprinkle over a half – three quarters of a cup of flour and a pinch or two of salt.  Kneed gently into a smooth dough, divide and roll into lengths about one and a half centimeters thick, then cut into small sections.  I rolled mine over a fork, but you don’t have to.

To cook, drop the dumplings into the boiling salted water, they will rise to the surface when cooked, I let them float for about ten seconds before scooping them out and dropping them into the sauce….   Mmmm the sauce!  Make a simple tomato and garlic sauce with cream, make a little extra as gnocchi absorbs the sauce deliciously.  Sprinkle with grated parmesan and a little cracked pepper and serve immediately.

So yummy!

Some variations include steaming or baking the whole potato, with the skin on, and obviously peeling while hot, or adding an egg, you need to allow the potato to cool a little first, others may be made from pumpkin, or potato with added cheese or herbs, etc. I must try some of these my self.

We have had lovely butter beans, they really took off after the nearby garlic was harvested it seems proof that they are not good plant companions at all!

And the beetroot chili didn’t turn out so well.. arh, it apparently tried to escape from the jar and, well was perhaps not fit for eating afterall.  Once we managed to get the lid off (no small task!) it just kept on oozing up and out in a strange kind of menacing way.

Well, the sour dough baking has been going ok, I don’t even know which batch I’m on to now, maybe the fifth??

The last attempt was an improvement, it seems I need to leave the sponge out the proof at least over night, and likewise with the dough itself to rise again for almost the same period of time.

Here are some of photos from the second to last loaf…

The sponge mix

Sitting here to rise for a few hours.

Unfortunately baby and lack of light conspired to prevent me from taking any photo of the baked loaf, but it didn’t rise at all, tasted sour and as you’d expect but unfortunately was just way too heavy to eat!

A friend of mine has been baking sourdough bread for a while now, and after learning how easy it is, at least how easy it is to grow your own starter, I decided to have a go.  It seems that if you have made yeast based bread before this should be fairly easy, you’ll know a little about kneading and rising etc. and if you have a breadmaker all the extra work is done for you.  Although I do enjoy the kneading myself!

The starter, pictured above, is made from one cup of unbleached organic flour and one cup of warm water, left in a warm place for about three days. It also needs to be feed every 24 hours during this time and be in a breathable container.

Mine went all bubbly and beer smelling, which is the plan.  Just will have to wait and see how the bread turns out!

I found all the info I needed here, and here.  Have a go, sourdough is one of those old ways of making bread and the starters were often shared in a community, so why not start your own?